Picasso's Cannes Villa Art Auction

The daughter of Picasso's eldest son Paulo, Marina inherited around 10,000 pieces from the artist's estate in 1975. This latest sale will include pieces that date mainly from the late 1940s through to the mid-1960s.

The auction, titled "Picasso in Private: Works from the Collection of Marina Picasso" will take place on the 5th February at Sotheby's in London. The pre-sale estimate is between £6.9 and 9.8 million.

In June 2014, Sotheby’s sold a group of 126 ceramics from the collection of Marina Picasso for £12.3 million, almost tripling its presale estimate and with every piece finding a buyer, a rarity among auctions.

Marina also plans to sell the Belle Epoque villa 'La California', in Cannes, that she inherited from her grandfather. Although she has stated her desire to stay in the area and will not be selling until she finds herself happily settled in another home.

The daughter of the artist’s eldest son Paulo, she grew up distant from her grandfather and was only 25 years old when she inherited roughly 10,000 pieces from his estate in 1975. For decades, the ceramics in storage. “I hung up a few of his paintings, but I couldn’t display everything in my house,” she said. “It’s too much.”

Travelling exhibitions of the ceramics with the occasional sale has been their fate up until now. “This is part of my history,” she said, “so I want them to sell well, and prices right now are strong at auction.”

In a statement, Sotheby's co-head of Impressionist & modern art worldwide, Helena Newman said, "This wonderful collection presents an intimate view of the artist in his moments of creation, as though we are standing at Picasso's shoulder, able to observe his creative process as he reinvented himself as an artist over and over again,"